


Sucrose and Anything Just as Sweet

by SilentWaves



Series: Waves' Dr. STONE Week 2020 [4]
Category: Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Childhood Memories, Day 4 - (Re)invention, Day 4 - Different First Meetings, Dr STONE Week 2020, First Meetings, Gen, I Had A Lot Of Fun With This, Light-Hearted, anyways I just love their dynamic and their friendship a lot, like SUPER light-hearted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25008943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentWaves/pseuds/SilentWaves
Summary: When they were younger, Senku sold homemade rock candy. From there, a 3000-year-old friendship forms.
Relationships: Ishigami Senkuu & Ogawa Yuzuriha & Ooki Taiju
Series: Waves' Dr. STONE Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806610
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34
Collections: Dr. Stone Week 2020





	Sucrose and Anything Just as Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Haha I had a lot of fun with this. Very light and very casual. I love their friendship a lot so I played around with their first meeting a bit.

“Hey Taiju, Yuzuriha, take a look at this,” Senku rolls the old ramen cart, repurposed now that it’s no longer needed since Francois was revived. 

Taiju gasps as he recognizes the familiar colourless crystals, “No. Way.” He sprints over.

“What’s the conversion rate from Dragos?” Yuzuriha teases. “Are they still 500 Yen each?”

“Well, for you guys, I _suppose_ I could offer a discount.” Senku smiles and hands Yuzuriha a stick. “Old friends, not in need of finances, etc.”

“Aw sweet!” Taiju accepts it enthusiastically. “Ha! Literally, get it?”

Yuzuriha shakes her head fondly and gratefully accepts one as well. “How old were you when you first made them for us?” She asks.

“Must’ve been around 8? Well no, I think I was around 7 years and 9 months.” Senku thinks back. “We haven’t had the time to be making rock candies for a while, even before the petrification.”

“Yeah,” Yuzuriha takes a small bite. “Ugh, you should re-invent toothpaste too before all of our teeth fall out. These taste a lot sweeter than I remember!”

“Huh, good point, though I think just getting certain plants and water should suffice for now.” Senku nods. “But you’ve always thought they were sweet, Yuzu.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah,” Taiju chomps at his stick of hard candies, the volume of his crunching nearly overpowering his words. “You never ate sweet things so anything with sugar was automatically ‘too sweet’ for you. I think these are fine though!”

“Yeah, but you’re such an oaf, you’d eat anything,” Senku gently teases. Yuzuriha laughs in agreement. Senku continues, “Even though I charged that much money for some sugar on a stick, you still bought them.”

“Hey, 500 yen isn’t all that bad! It wasn’t like I had anything else to do with all the money I got for cleaning out people’s trash.” Taiju says. 

“But you also bought them for me?” Yuzuriha says. “Anyone could see that it was a lot of money for a small stick of hard candy, but you insisted that I try some anyways.”

“Yeah?” Taiju asks.

“Yeah, I remember it going something like this,” Yuzuriha reminisces.

* * *

The sky was beautiful — it was springtime, and springtime meant sakura tree viewings and new beginnings. That was the fated day when a young Yuzuriha Ogawa met her best friends. Their meeting didn’t seem big at the time, but it started to mean more to them as time went on. 

“Oh wow, look at that boy with the funny bedhead over there! What do you think he’s selling?” Yuzuriha asked Taiju, who, at the time, was just another stranger on the street. “It doesn’t look very colourful.”

“I know exactly what it is!” Taiju said. “I’m Taiju, by the way! And we should go check out that stand!” He took another look in that direction, and thoughtfully assessed the situation. “Uh, but the boy looks kind of busy, you know? It looks like he’s fiddling with some gears and needles back there… We should go talk to him!”

“Well there’s no harm in saying hi!” Yuzuriha agreed. “I’m Yuzuriha, by the way. And who knows, maybe he goes to one of our schools?”

And then when they exchanged school information, they realized that they went to the same one. Yuzuriha had thought that it must have been like those strings of destiny that she’s always read about. She briefly went into a small daydream as she does, projecting the few shows that she’s seen onto her current situation as best as she could.

“Oh!” Yuzuriha snapped out of it to see Taiju patiently waiting, and she had a sudden image of him in one of those high-collared suit jackets in the rain during the 1900s as a very charming gentleman (but no, that wasn’t quite it). Anyways. “I guess I’ve always missed you leaving since I’m in a club!”

“Oh wow, that’s amazing!” Taiju smiled, far too widely for a 1900s gentleman, but Yuzuriha found it charming nevertheless, “Which one?”

“The crafts club!” Yuzuriha said. “And you?”

“Uh, I’m not really in any clubs,” and Taiju begun explaining why, but he was stuttering a lot and Yuzuriha didn’t really catch most of what was being said, so she just figured that he was some kind of part-time hero. She nodded in understanding, and Taiju smiled back. “We should hang out more at lunch, Yuzuriha. You seem pretty cool, so we should be friends!” 

Yuzuriha, at that moment, had already thought of Taiju in about six part-time hero stories, and was in awe that he was willing to be friends with a normal girl like her. She grabbed his hand and tried to match Taiju’s enthusiasm in their handshake as best as she could.

“Yeah, of course!” Yuzuriha walked with Taiju as they went to the mysterious stand with the mysterious boy behind the counter. While on the topic of heroes, she wonders if this strange boy surrounded by the gears and textbooks could be Taiju’s genius sidekick, or maybe the villain, or maybe the _villain sidekick_. 

Along the way, there were a bunch of friendly neighbours going up to Taiju and thanking him for his neighbourhood services. He shook everyone’s hand and refused their payment, and Yuzuriha was in awe of the upstanding citizen that was standing in front of her. _Definitely a part-time hero,_ she thought.

When they finally made it to the stand, Yuzuriha saw that the boy’s supposed bedhead wasn’t a bedhead at all, but instead reminiscent of a Mad Scientist trope in movies. She was feeling all the most certain about her theory of him as a regular-citizen-turned-evil-scientist-sidekick when he spoke in a tone that was altogether much too cheerful to fit that storyline. “Hey! Are you guys here to buy some rock candies? I made them myself!” He said proudly. “And, they’re only 500 yen per stick!”

“500 yen?” Yuzuriha didn’t go out shopping much, except for fabrics and string, but she knew that two 500 yen coins could buy her a good amount of fabric. She wasn’t sure if that was worth spending on a suspicious, semi-clear, sharp-looking thing that she wasn’t even sure was edible. _Maybe this was the evil plot that his ally had come up with,_ she wondered.

“I’ll buy one!” Taiju said. “They look delicious!” And Yuzuriha started considering getting one as well, because if the ‘hero’ could get one, then she supposes the ‘hero’s friend’ should get one as well.

“Do you have the money?” The boy asked, glancing at Taiju’s hand, which had already started reaching for a stick.

“Oh yeah! Sorry, my bad!” Taiju pulled out a nicely-secured wallet attached to his belt. “I got paid today for cleaning the streets, mowing everyone’s lawns, and hanging up all of the laundry! I have exactly two 500 yen coins, so I’d like to buy two of your fancy candies please.” 

_Woah,_ Yuzuriha had no words, and was probably looking all the more like a token background character with her mouth agape and her eyes blown wide. But that was alright, because Taiju was a bright ray of sunshine and Yuzuriha was just a flower basking in it.

“Sure,” Senku handed over the sticks and puts the coins in a small jar. “I’m Senku, by the way.”

“Oh, you’re wearing our school uniform!” Yuzuriha said to Senku, and she had a sudden realization. “Wait a second! Are you that genius science and math kid from the other class?” 

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m a _genius_ ,” Senku waved his hand dismissively. “I’m just interested in science.”

“No! You’re totally a genius!” Taiju proclaimed, standing up on the rock as the midday sun lit him up in all of the best angles. “I struggle with science, and math, and english, and… well! You know! But you’re already studying the high school level for most of those subjects! That’s amazing!” He said, with all the confidence of someone with a failing average. 

“I have the time. You look energetic, you could help me move materials.” Senku suggested. Yuzuriha had a brief flash of concern that they would end up as the villain and random one-hit bad guy if they teamed up with Senku, but then thought that Senku couldn’t be that bad if he was this friendly.

“That’s a great idea!!” Yuzuriha exclaimed. Maybe she could witness the rise of Senku and Taiju, the brain-genius and heart-genius of their generation. They could make a TV series about them someday, and Yuzuriha would really like to be someone on the scene to support them.

“Well, try out the candy first.” Senku said. “I needed a break while I wait for my university textbook orders to come in, and I figured I’d set aside some sugar to sell. The crystallization rate of the sucrose is actually a pretty good reference for the variant that I’m working on for the popular fuel propane, which you see in barbeques…” and Yuzuriha doesn’t remember the rest, because a lot of carbon chains and hydrogen bonding were involved, and she didn’t know enough science to follow along. 

“Oh yeah! I wanted to give one to you, since you looked like you weren’t sure about the cost.” Taiju looked at Yuzuriha, and she could swear that the colourless sugar candy actually looked pretty appealing when it was Taiju handing them to her. She thought briefly that maybe he wasn’t a hero after all, but instead some sort of saint.

“Thanks!” Yuzuriha didn’t really eat sweets, but she could like this one if she remembered the kind-hearted guy who was smiling as she took it. She took a bite, and coughed. “Wow, it’s pretty good.” She said, looking around for some water, and deciding that this was probably a snack better consumed in small nibbles. 

“Right?” Taiju was happily munching away at his. “Senku, you really are a genius! When do I start helping you?”

Senku shrugged. “Whenever you’d like, really. Oh, and Yuzuriha?” He looked back at her. “I think I remember seeing you in the crafts club? I’ve been looking for someone with precise hands.” He held up his contraption. “I’m not used to the detail-work tools yet, but I still want to make a working clock. Do you want to help?” He gently asked, with all the enthusiasm of a rock and the intention of a mastermind behind a plan that ensured the world’s destruction (or salvation? Yuzuriha thought both narratives would make for interesting television).

“Really?” Yuzuriha asked. She wouldn’t mind this at all, because she was given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a part of the in-group of two people who were practically _exploding_ with protagonist potential. If she was friends with them, she wouldn’t need to order any more comics ever again. “I’ll… I’ll do my best!” She responds.

“Great, then it’s all settled,” Senku said. 

And Yuzuriha was right, because sticking with them resulted in a front-row seat to the spectacle that was their adventures together.

* * *

“Woah woah woah,” Senku laughs. “I think you watched too much television as a kid.”

“Yeah, no, I wasn’t any type of _hero_ , though I think it’s very flattering that you thought of me that way!!” Taiju says. “But really, I just helped people sometimes clean out the trash, but it was mostly high schoolers looking to avoid doing it themselves. They paid me in 100 yen coins, and sometimes, if I’m lucky, a 500 yen coin.”

“Well, that’s how I remember it,” Yuzuriha scoffs. “I don’t think your version could be all that different.”

“Oh trust me,” Taiju says, remembering that day. “It definitely is.”

* * *

It was springtime, which meant it was the season for clouds and bullies. Taiju would do rounds of his school at lunch and after the final bell every day, but it pained him to think of all the people he couldn’t help.

He started running then, looking around the streets for any bullies that could’ve gone to the dark alleyways and abandoned buildings. Taiju didn’t get far before seeing one such victim.

She went to his school, he’s pretty sure. Very popular, and very kind, and an incredibly lovely person all around. Taiju saw no reason why anyone would bully her, but alas, the bandages on her fingers told a different story altogether.

“Hello there, are you doing alright?” He asked. “I’m Taiju, and I can defend you from anyone!”

“Thanks?” She raised an eyebrow up in response. “I’m Yuzuriha, and I… don’t really need to be defended? But thanks for the offer!”

_Ah, so she’s one of those types,_ Taiju thought. He got them sometimes, where the bullying had already gotten so bad that by the time he arrived they were completely terrified of anyone who tried to help. There was a boy just last week that had refused to admit he was being bullied even though he had bruises all up his arms. 

Taiju wouldn’t try put them in any more danger, because that was the opposite of his goal, but he would try his best to at least become someone that the victim could depend on.

“Well then, let’s just be friends!” Taiju really did want to be friends with her, the kind, pretty, loving… he gets a bit lost in his thoughts, coming up with descriptor after descriptor for his schoolmate. He blinks, and looks at Yuzuriha’s outstretched hand with a confused stare.

“Handshake!” Yuzuriha repeated, “to celebrate our new friendship!” 

“Oh!” Taiju immediately took her hand, careful not to disturb the bandages while mentally berating himself for spacing out. 

They walked the nearby park for a bit after that, both because he wanted to chat with her and also because he wanted to help take her mind off the suffering that she’s probably trying to escape from. 

He noticed that Yuzuriha kept glancing over at a certain cardboard stand down by the riverside. Taiju wasn’t sure how it was holding up, since it was really just cardboard and it looked pretty crooked, but as someone who didn’t understand the physics unit at all, he’s pretty sure there’s some explanation for it. At first, he thought that Yuzuriha was also wondering about the stand, only to realize that she could have easily been glancing over because she recognized the owner. A few lightbulbs went off, and Taiju realized that maybe this was the bully that she’s been trying to avoid.

He did a double take, and looked over again, but more intently this time. The boy was around their age, and he might’ve gone to their school too. Taiju never saw him hanging around the dark alleyways behind the building, or that one area by the gym that teachers never went to, so he couldn’t be sure.

“Do you know him?” Taiju asked. If she did, well, it wouldn’t be the first time Taiju’s mistaken good-natured teasing among friends for something more malicious. 

“Hmm? No, I don’t. You?” Yuzuriha asked.

So he wasn’t wrong (this time). Well then, that would mean that he should go and confront this bully who would dare harm the lovely Yuzuriha’s hands. “Can we go talk to him?” He asked. He wouldn’t do anything to put Yuzuriha in more danger, and he would respect her wishes if she didn’t feel safe enough to go.

“Sure!” Yuzuriha replied, with a lot more enthusiasm than Taiju expected from someone who was going to see the person who (presumably) cut up her hands.

They arrived, and the boy looked just as intimidating as he did from afar, with angry red eyes and spiky pale hair. “Want some?” He said without emotion, gesturing to the weapon-like sticks on his cart.

Taiju didn’t know what to do, but the sign said that they were 500 yen per stick. There were only three sticks left in the cart, and Taiju thought that if he bought them all he’d be able to protect himself and Yuzuriha from the mysterious threat that was her bully (well, potentially at least? He wasn’t sure yet). He dug into his pocket only to realize that he had a lot of loose change for much smaller amounts. He _hated_ counting coins. It took _forever_. But he would do it anyways. To fight bullying and help his newfound friend.

“Oh, here. I can help count your coins if you want!” Yuzuriha said, smiling. Taiju handed over his wallet without hesitation. Only about 10 seconds later, Yuzuriha handed it back to him. “I’m pretty sure you have 610 Yen, but my count might be off.”

“Woah, how’d you count so fast?” Taiju said, momentarily forgetting about the other boy behind the stand.

“I just… added them together?” Yuzuriha looked confused again. “Why, what do you do?”

“Group by the same value. Multiply and add,” The boy behind the country said. “I’m Senku, by the way.”

They introduced themselves too, but Taiju was still on the lookout for suspicious behaviour from Senku that could indicate any ill will towards Yuzuriha. 

“What about you, Taiju?” Yuzuriha asked politely. “You looked like you were struggling with the coins earlier.” 

“I uh, try to remember which image means what? But sometimes there are those special edition ones, and then I have to look at the size of it” he answered.

“There are values printed on the coins through?” Yuzuriha looked confused again, but in a more endeared way this time. She pointed to the very clearly labelled ‘100’ or ‘500’s engraved into the metal.

Taiju promptly freaked out over the fact that he’s been counting coins wrong for the whole 8 years of his life while Yuzuriha and Senku hid kind but uncontainable laughter behind their hands.

Taiju realized then that Senku probably wasn’t who was bothering Yuzuriha. He’d find them someday, and take a good beating in her place, but right now wasn’t that time. Heck, maybe this Senku fellow could even help them, what with the sharp sticks that he can produce on a whim (though Taiju didn’t like _hurting_ the bullies, because that’s no good).

They continued chatting while Taiju absentmindedly crunched on his stick of rock candy (Senku explained that it wasn’t meant to be a weapon, especially not to hurt anyone’s hands). Yuzuriha was slower in eating hers, polite but clearly not used to sugary treats. Taiju respected that.

“Cool! So you’re like that Stine dude!” Taiju said. “Does that mean you build cool things like that?”

“Einstein.” Senku corrected. “And yeah,” he held up the contraption that he was working on. “I’m building a watch right now, but I’m no good with the detailed stuff yet.”

“Oh, I can help!” Yuzuriha explained that she was in the crafts club. 

Taiju started intently as she adjusted the gears into place with nimble and quick fingers. Taiju hoped that her bandaged hands weren’t hurting too badly while that was happening. But while Senku gave her instructions, even faster than she had counted the coins, Yuzuriha had gotten the watch finished and ticking.

“Woah!!” Taiju exclaimed, because watches were built in factories, not by _people_ , and if these two could build a watch, then they could probably also build the get-rid-of-every-bully-without-hurting-them-inator that Taiju was hoping to see someday. “What can I do to help?”

“You can do the heavy lifting. I’ve seen you lug the gym mats around the field.” Senku nodded, and Taiju whooped. It was true, the gym mats were altogether much too filthy and none of the teachers had the time to clean them. Of course, he didn’t want anyone passing out from the stench of month-old mats, so he made it his personal duty to clean them when he could.

But anyways, if he stuck around with Yuzruiha, maybe someday she’d be comfortable enough around him to let him help her, and maybe Senku would be able to help Taiju eliminate the pain and suffering from the world. He’ll protect them both from bullies, as he does for any other people in need, and he’ll do whatever he can to help with the projects. 

And soon, beyond bullies and school-age drama, beyond faraway dreams and naive hopes, Taiju would soon realize that his time with these people who began to call him a dearest friend is one that would allow him to really be able to help save everyone.

* * *

“Wait, you thought my hands were bandaged because of bullies?” Yuzuriha asks, giggling. “I just poked myself with the needle a lot back then!” 

“And I was the one getting bullied, not the other way around,” Senku says, with a slightly misplaced lightheartedness to his tone. 

“Well I know that _now,_ ” Taiju flushes from embarrassment. “But you can’t blame me for assuming. It looked like what it looked like.”

Yuzuriha laughs, “Well, what about you, Senku?” She asks. “What do you remember?”

Senku sighs, and stared at his own rock candy. He wasn’t too fond of sweets, but he was the sentimental type, so he chewed on it anyways. “There was a rock candy stand, a watch, and money. I didn’t think too much of it, and I hate to say that I seem to have forgotten most of it by now.”

“Wait, so you can count for thousands of years but not remember our first meeting?” Taiju asks, not quite annoyed so much as confused.

“A lot of kids came by and I didn’t think it was important to remember everything back then,” Senku shrugs, averting his gaze. “After we got so close, I realized how wrong I was, and started remembering more then — not just science.”

“Aww,” Yuzuriha smiles. She could always tell whenever he was lying, and this was not one of those times. “Well, that’s alright then. But that means you have to make us rock candies on demand!”

“You don’t even like candy,” Senku scoffs, hiding a laugh. “But sure, if that’s what you want.” 

Taiju whooped, and they made their way back to the village for some real food.

Their first meeting wasn’t very eventful. It was the opposite, in fact, with their vague memories, filled by details from the silly adventures of childhood desires. But it was in that normalcy that Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha found friends that would stick by them through millennia of separation and a war right afterwards. And for that, they wouldn’t change a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> fluffy cute friendship. That's what I'm here for.
> 
> [Tumblr](https://voicelesswaves.tumblr.com/)


End file.
